Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

In her 1986 album, True Blue, Madonna sings

There's hunger everywhere
We've got to take a stand
Reach out for someone's hand
Love makes the world go round

It's easy to forget 
If you don't hear the sound
Of pain and prejudice
Love makes the world go round. 

The idea that "love makes the world go round" is found in our Parasha this week. We are told that "Abraham is old, advanced in years". (Genesis 24:1) Rabbi Sholom Noach Berezovsky, of blessed memory, also known as the Slonimer Rebbe, asks the following question – why does the Torah add the words "advanced in years"—to the statement "Abraham was old"? I mean, if Abraham is "old" it implies that he is "advanced in years"! What do we learn from the seemingly superfluous words, "advanced in years"?  Now, the words in Hebrew for "advanced in years" in the Torah are "bah bayamim." This literally means, "his days came".  The Slonimer Rebbe teaches that Abraham's days numbered so many because there never came a day when he failed to perform an act of love.

The word for "love" in Judaism is "Chesed". It means a particular kind of love –generosity of spirit, kindness, compassion and open heartedness.  Every day that Abraham lived, he did acts of Chesed. The Slonimer Rebbe takes this further. He says that it is up to each one of us to follow in Abraham's footsteps and do acts of chesed every day.  Chesed is the most important mitzvah we can do.  How do we know this? Because, it says in the Psalms (89:3), "The world is built through 'Chesed'". 

In her book, Software for the Soul, Psalms for Everyone, Tara Mizrachi notes that the Psalmist does not say, "The world is created through Chesed" or "The world is made through Chesed". Rather, the Psalmist uses the word "built" ("banah" in Hebrew). She writes:

"The word ‘built’ suggests the world of kindness on earth is not created by a single utterance rather it is built like one builds a house - brick by brick, good deed by good deed, prayer by prayer. The way a world of kindness happens is painstaking and deliberate. It requires many hands and much effort and love - even when we tire and feel like quitting."

May each of us emulate Abraham, adding our own brick each day to build our worlds with love.

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